Women of the Year 2010: Dr. Hawa Abdi Her Daughters

[Somalina]

 

Friday, November 05, 2010

 

A Family Affair: From left: Dr. Amina Mohamed, Dr. Hawa Abdi and Dr. Deqo Mohamed, photographed during a business trip to Geneva, Switzerland, on September 18, 2010.

 

On a still, hot morning last May, hundreds of Islamist militants invaded the massive displaced-persons camp that Dr. Hawa Abdi runs near Mogadishu, Somalia. They surrounded the 63-year-old ob-gyn’s office, holding her hostage and taking control of the camp. “Women can’t do things like this,” they threatened.

Dr. Abdi, who is equal parts Mother Teresa and Rambo, was unfazed. Every day in Somalia brings new violence as bands of rebels rove ungoverned. Today Somalia remains what the U.N. calls one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. On that morning in May, Dr. Abdi challenged her captors: “What have you done for society?” . The thugs stayed a week, leaving only after the U.N. and others advocated on her behalf. Dr. Abdi then, of course, got back to work.

Her lifesaving efforts started in 1983, when she opened a one-room clinic on her family farm. As the government collapsed, refugees flocked to her, seeking food and care. Today she runs a camp housing approximately 90,000 people, mostly women and children because, as she says, “the men are dead, fighting, or have left Somalia to find work.”

While Dr. Abdi has gotten some help, many charities refuse to enter Somalia. “It’s the most dangerous country,” says Kati Marton, a board member of Human Rights Watch. “Dr. Abdi is just about the only one doing anything.” Her greatest support: two of her daughters, Deqo, 35, and Amina, 30, also doctors, who often work with her. Despite the bleak conditions, Dr. Abdi sees a glimmer of hope. “Women can build stability,” she says. “We can make peace.”

 

Source: Glamour

[Somalina]

Masha Allah. Ilaahow noo badi dadkaan oo kale kana badbaadi tuugada soo weerarta. Aamiin.

I call Dr. Hawa "Mama Somalia".

 

They are Women of the Year because: “They are fearless. Their life’s purpose is to be of service to Somali refugees, and their unwavering fortitude in the face of insurmountable obstacles is a testament to the warrior spirit of women.

—Iman, cosmetics executive, model and 2006 Woman of the Year, born in Somalia

[Jacaylbaro]

Waa gabadh ku dayasho mudan .....

[Kamaavi]

Really appreciate them.

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

this mother has officially moved to the top of my most important people alive list. Other notables are Edna and Faduma Jibril. A rare thing to see such courageous, noble inspiring woman among our people lately...We should find a way to support these Woman.

[Oz]

This thread has been posted already

[Somalina]

Yes, the poster knew that already. Thanks

 

Congrats to our strong and exceptional women everywhere.

 

Support our doktooris back home folks. Thank you kindly.

[Kamaavi]

Nice people....

[Buuxo]

Mashallah,May Allah reward them with all their efforts.

 

It is great to see such courages and strong-willed Somali Women making a difference.We need more like her.

[Chocolate and Honey]

Congrats to them. May Allah reward them with Jana and forgiveness.

[Somalina]

Dr. Hawa Abdi Honored by the City of Irving, Texas, USA

Mayor Herbert Gears of Irving, Texas (left) presents Dr. Hawa Abdi Day proclamation to Dr. Hawa

 

December 16, 2010 (Dallas, Texas)- Dr. Hawa Abdi of Somalia was honored by the City of Irving, Texas with a proclamation declaring December 16 Dr. Hawa Abdi Day in honor of her humanitarian work. At a reception held in her honor at the Irving-Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, December 16, 2010, Mayor Herbert Gears of Irving presented her the proclamation certificate. Mayor Gears commended Dr. Hawa for her humanitarian work in her homeland of Somalia. The reception was sponsored by Amoud Foundation of Irving, Texas, and was attended by Somali Americans from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, City of Irving council members, members and leaders from the Muslim community, and other dignitaries.

 

In her brief remarks, Dr. Hawa thanked the City of Irving for the honor. She thanked the City of Irving and its people for the hospitality they extended to the Somali immigrants who settled in their city. She urged the Somali residents to appreciate the peace and its benefits they enjoy here, and to always remember the brothers and sisters left behind in their homeland, and to do everything in their power to contribute to the search for peace for their homeland.

Dr. Hawa Abdi was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. She studied medicine in Kiev, Ukraine, in the 1960s and became one of the first female Somali gynecologists. In 1983, she opened her own private clinic at Afgoi near Mogadishu.

 

In 1991, when Somalia’s government collapsed, and the country descended into a brutal civil war, she opened the doors to her hospital to Internally Displaced People (IDPs) fleeing the violence in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital. By 1993, tens of thousands of IDPs were living at her hospital and the surrounding grounds.

 

Dr. Hawa continues to care for tens of thousands of Somali IDPs at her clinic camp grounds to this day through her Dr. Hawa Abdi Foundation, www.drhawaabdifoundation.org

 

Dr. Hawa and her two daughters, Dr. Amina and Dr. Deqo, were the winners of the 2010 Glamour Magazine “Women of the Year” award. Dr. Hawa was the winner of the Amoud Foundation of Irving’s 2008 Awdal Achievement Award

 

Dr. Hawa is visiting the Dallas-Fort Worth area December 16-18, 2010.

[Ismalura]

I have known about Dr Hawa Abdi and her wonderful work for about a year now. It is unfortunate how we recognize efforts like this only after gaal cadow does. I think appreciating people who do exceptional work for the community more often would motivate others.

 

May God protect Dr Hawa and the likes.

[The Zack]

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[Somalina]

Somali doctor exemplifies Islam's progressive side

Published: Sunday, December 19, 2010, 8:48 AM

 

 

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

 

What's the ugliest side of Islam? Maybe it's the Somali Muslim militias that engage in atrocities like the execution of a 13-year-old girl named Aisha Ibrahim. Three men raped Aisha, and when she reported the crime she was charged with illicit sex, half-buried in the ground before a crowd of 1,000 and then stoned to death.

 

That's the extremist side of Islam that drives Islamophobia in the United States, including congressional hearings on American Muslims that House Republicans are planning for next year.

 

But there's another side of Islam as well, represented by an extraordinary Somali Muslim woman named Dr. Hawa Abdi, who has confronted the armed militias. Amazingly, she forced them to back down -- and even submit a written apology. Glamour magazine, which named Hawa a "woman of the year," got it exactly right when it called her "equal parts Mother Teresa and Rambo."

 

Hawa, a 63-year-old ob-gyn who earned a law degree on the side, is visiting the United States to raise money for her health work back home. A member of Somalia's elite, she founded a one-room clinic in 1983, but then the Somalian government collapsed, famine struck, and aid groups fled. So today Hawa is running a 400-bed hospital.

 

Over the years, the hospital became the core of something even grander. Thousands and thousands of people displaced by civil war came to shelter on Hawa's 1,300 acres of farmland around the hospital. Today her home and hospital have been overtaken by a vast camp that she says numbers about 90,000 displaced people.

 

Hawa supplies these 90,000 people with drinking water and struggles to find ways to feed them. She worries that handouts breed dependency (and in any case, United Nations agencies can't safely reach her now to distribute food), so she is training formerly nomadic herding families to farm and even to fish in the sea.

 

She's also pushing education. An American freelance journalist, Eliza Griswold, visited Hawa's encampment in 2007 and 2008 and was stunned that an unarmed woman had managed to create a secure, functioning oasis surrounded by a chaotic land of hunger and warlords. Griswold helped Hawa start a school for 850 children, mostly girls. It's only a tiny fraction of the children in the camp, but it's a start. (Griswold also wrote movingly about Hawa in her book "The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam.")

 

In addition, Hawa runs literacy and health classes for women, as well as programs to discourage female genital mutilation. And she operates a tiny jail -- for men who beat their wives.

 

"We are trying an experiment," she told me. "We women in Somalia are trying to be leaders in our community."

 

So Hawa had her hands full already -- and then in May a hard-line militia, Hizb al-Islam, or Party of Islam, decided that a woman shouldn't run anything substantial. The militia ordered her to hand over operations, and she refused -- and pointedly added: "I may be a woman, but I'm a doctor. What have you done for society?"

 

The Party of Islam then attacked with 750 soldiers and seized the hospital. The world's Somalis reacted with outrage, and the militia backed down and ordered Hawa to run the hospital, but under its direction.

 

She refused. For a week there were daily negotiations, but Hawa refused to budge. She demanded that the militia not only withdraw entirely but also submit a written apology.

 

"I was begging her, 'Just give in,'" recalled Deqo Mohamed, her daughter, a doctor in Atlanta who spoke regularly to her mother by telephone. "She was saying, 'No! I will die with dignity.'"

 

It didn't come to that. The Party of Islam tired of being denounced by Somalis at home and around the world, so it slinked off and handed over an apology -- but also left behind a wrecked hospital. The operating theater still isn't functional, and that's why Hawa is here, appealing for money (especially from ethnic Somalis). She has worked out an arrangement with Vital Voices, a group that helps to empower female leaders, to channel tax-deductible contributions to her hospital.

 

What a woman! And what a Muslim! It's because of people like her that sweeping denunciations of Islam, or the "Muslim hearings" planned in Congress, rile me -- and seem profoundly misguided.

 

The greatest religious battles are often not between faiths, but within faiths. The widest gulfs are often not those that divide one religion from the next, but those between extremists and progressives within a single faith. And in this religious season, there's something that we can all learn from the courage, compassion and tolerance of Dr. Hawa Abdi.

 

© 2010, New York Times News Service

[Ismalura]

Progressive islam side laguye. She is a million times more than that; she is a strong Muslim woman. I am tired of watching these people change everything to fit with their own interests in the world. robably the only reason why she was recognized in this award is because 'extremist muslims' baa la dagaalay lakiin Dr Hawa was doing this work since the civil war. She deserves more awards especially from the Somali people !